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lxx lated to the voyage of the Persian author, without recollecting that another copy existed upon which he himself had marked these paragraphs in brackets. Of the discovery of the "supercherie" consequent upon this first we do not here treat, as irrelevant to our subject.

The most satisfactory description of the work, however, will be found in the elaborate article by M. Quatremère, in the fourteenth volume of the Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits, which comprises a great portion of the life of Shah Rukh, and the text, accompanied by a version in French, of two other extracts from Abd-er-Razzák's history, relating respectively to the voyage of the ambassador of Shah Rukh to China, and to that of Abd-er-Razzák himself to India. From this latter the present translation has been made. M. Quatremère, whose high authority is unquestioned, passes the most favourable judgment as to the merits of the work, saying that it is incontestably one of the most curious and veracious histories that has been written in any of the Eastern languages.

Abd-er-Razzák set out from Herát in January 1442, and proceeded by way of Kohistán and Kirmán to Ormuz, of which emporium he speaks in terms of the highest admiration. From Ormuz he sailed for India, but being too late for the monsoon, he was compelled to pass several months at Muscat, where, as he drolly describes it, the heat was so intense, that the marrow boiled in the bones, and the metal of their swords melted like wax. The excessive heat threw him into